Ziggy Played Guitar ....

[Fretless]

A continuation of my current fixation with finally taking up the electric guitar after decades of bass-playing.

I managed to nail the riff from 'Rebel Rebel' this week and 'Heroes' is coming along nicely. In a bit of a Bowie mood at the moment.

New Toy just in - a Valeton VLP-200 loop pedal.



My 10-year-old Hotone Wally+ loop pedal has become rather erratic of late. Cutting out unexpectedly or just not working at all. So I started looking around. There are an enormous number of looper pedals available but this one caught my eye.

Two independent loop stations that can be coupled to run sequentially or independently. And a drum machine capable of synching with a loop. Big, bright display and colour-coded foot switches for easy use. Also, it is very affordable.

A looper is essential for the Ambient style of music I'm getting into and two independent loops offers interesting possibilities for soundscaping.

Had a quick play about with the pre-programmed drum patterns (100 of them) and that should provide a lot of fun.

'Will you Rock and Roll with me?'

 

[Fretless]

Pulled my old acoustic out of the attic (it's a Marlin!). Gave it a bit of a clean and it's still playable.

Needs new strings though...

 

[Slinger]

Heh. heh, an acoustic. a.k.a. No Hiding Place - It's how you find out exactly what mistakes and dodgy fingering (ooh errr Missus) you were getting away with using an electric and all those pedals.

Trust me, I know.

 

[Fretless]

It is a conscious choice. I do need to improve my picking and fingering - and occasionally get away from drowning in waves of echo and reverb.

I've had this acoustic since the 80's and it has a fine mellow tone. Doing a little bit of maintenance on it is also good for practicing those skills. I must have restrung it once - decades ago.

 

[TheMarlin]

I’ve got a custom made luthier built acoustic guitar. It’s in the garage. Never play it. See all point made above by @Slinger for exact reasons it’s in hibernation.

…..picks at a nice Strat, amp dripping with reverb, and two different delays….all mistakes nicely smoothed over….

 

[TheRealAleman]

I have a Vintage Lemon Drop (Clone of Gary Moore's/Peter Greens' 57 Les Paul) from 2009 (Which for those in the know was when Vintage were using up the woods, necks and blanks that Gibson had to dispose of due to an EPA court action ). That gets fed into a rather nice fender Mustang III amp. Oddly despite all the modelling features available on the amp, I play it clean without a hint of Reverb, distortion etc ... I've also just bought myself a rather nice Marshal Stack the MS104.

I do have a rather nice curved top acoustic for when I'm in a Jazz mood

 

[Fretless]

I think I'm going slightly mad ...

("We could have told you that!")

There is this irrepressible urge to get creative and actually make concrete some dreams I have had for as long as I can remember.

Problem - volume: my little bass amp is turned down to just above zero - and the output on my guitars as well. Still I'm getting troubles with clipping and other sonic nasties. So...



Amazon to the rescue and a tiny desktop mixer has arrived. 4 channel input, 1 channel output, separate volume controls for all. Stereo / mono selection and a headphone amp (must try that).

This has solved my amplification troubles and I can regulate the gain from the pedalboard into the amp. All sounding much sweeter and more controlled.

3 more inputs still open.
I wonder ...

 

[Slinger]

Both your guitar(s) and amp will produce different *tones* as you up the volume on either, or both. The usual way of accommodating this ,these days, is to incorporate a "power soak" between the amp and your speaker cab. No use whatsoever if you're using a combo amp though, I know, but I just thought I'd mention it. My solution is to use either software emulations of amps and cabs, straight into my PC studio software, or using my little Marshall, which is switchable between 5w and 0.5w, which means I can crank it up a little.

 

[Fretless]

Beginners stupidity.

Guitar straps - got a nice wide suede leather, plain brown, for the LP copy. Looke really good in an understated, workmanlike way. Serious axe, means business.

Looking for a suitable strap for the red Thinline, I thought that something a bit C&W would be more suitable, found one with a nice stitched pattern and tried it. Looks lovely but this guitar is prone to 'neck dive' and the back of the strap is rather slippery so falls quickly out of place.

An extra, padded shoulder-piece didn't help matters and it was back to Amazon for another. Found a more patterned, leather strap and that looks rather good AND the guitar stays up during playing.

 

[Fretless]

Wondering if I should go down the very deep rabbit-hole called 'MIDI' and 'DAW'.

Can get a good deal on a controller device.

 

[TheMarlin]

You only have a handful of pedals. I’d steer clear for the time being. It’s a whole other minefield you don’t really need to explore at the moment.

If you really REALLY want a controller, and you’re handy with a soldering iron, I’ve got one you can have for free.

 

[Fretless]

Thanks for the solid advice.

Started to create a 'proper' music-station with the PC recording gear I got 20 years ago. It seems that MIDI is an essential part of that process these days. Certainly if you want to do it on a budget.

Cheap controller (including Cubase starter pack and beginners tutorials) is on order.

Don"t think I'll be diving into it all straight away but it's a good project for me summer.

 

[Fretless]

Studio corner is underway.



This was formerly the dining table until the kitchen was moved. Since then it has been a place to dump stuff. Should be room to set up my pedalboard and have the guitars, etc. nearby.


Laptop is showing its age but still works. Running USB into Schiit Wyrd regen unit which then provides power to the Roland UA25EX instrument interface (that can also be used as a DAC).

Amplifier is the lovely Sansui AU217 that I picked up from a thrift shop years ago. Really great little amp.
I tried putting my ancient NVA A40S here but that experienced severe grounding problems with the USB link and I just couldn't get it to work.

Speakers - yes, you've spotted a pair of 90's NVA Cube3's with the MDF cases. These were a mess when I got them, bass/midrange drivers were shot and the tweeters were mismatched and horrible.
Under RD's instruction, I put the standard Visaton tweeters in and fitted a pair of Doc's own doped Kevlar drivers.
These are terrific little things, they initially out-perfomed the Magnepan MMG's I was using at the time and are perfect for what I now intend to do.

 

[Fretless]

Anybody remember the Roland TB-303? Launched in the early 80's as a 'toy' bass synthesizer with a small sequencer built in. I really wanted one but never got around to it.



The TB-303 vanished into obscurity only to suddenly reappear in the 90's as a fundament of the Acid/Dance scene with it's big & bouncy bass sound driving a new generation of artists.

Look on eBay and original examples are offered for serious money. And so the clones have come along; some are carbon-copies, some are a little bit different.



Enter the Donner B1, a standalone analogue monophonic synth with built-in 16-step sequencer. A sort-of TB-303 clone but also not.

I am at a point where I want to try the Tangerine Dream & Krautrock style of space-guiter over electronic sequences. Things like MiniMoogs have fascinated me since I first started listening to music and then this device popped up in an algorithm-targeted piece of internet marketing.

Donner was a name unknown to me until I bought one of their guitars. They appear to be a major brand in the budget-end of musical instruments who have a reputation for low-price, good value gear. And they have an Easter Sale on! At least, Donner Germany does. With some attractive discounts and coupons.

The B1 synth has a special overstock reduction and I got an extra 10% off with a coupon. At that moment I was looking at something else from Korg but the deal Donner offered convinced me.

Anyhow it dropped in the postbox this afternoon, precisely on time to test instrument access on my new studio playback setup (see above). The B1 looks incredibly cool and it is quite small. The keys are more like pads and quite stiff but are intended mainly for sequence programming and not for sensitive playing. Analogue synth sounds are manipulated with a small array of twiddly knobs and immediately I got some great noises out of it.

Actually creating sequences will involve me reading the manual (RTFM!) but this is a fun groove machine that can get me into that Hawkwind / TD stratosphere.

 

[Slinger]

If you really are intending to go the Cuibase route eventually, be careful not to overdo it by buying gear that might end up as musical doorstops. Every instrument you can think of, and a million more you can't, is available as a plugin for Cuibase, as well as guitar effects, etc and studio equipment like limiters and compressors, etc. I used Cubase briefly, a long time ago (I ended up settling on Ableton), so I'm not sure what comes with it as freebies these days, but I bet it's loads. There are tons of free plugins (VST or the newer VST3) on the web too.

 

[Fretless]

It is a voyage of discovery and the whole midi universe looks very daunting.

After some intensive research into what should a beginner do, I have ordered a Donner DMK25 midi controller keyboard which I could get at a giveaway price and it includes a basic Cubase version plus an extensive tutorial package.



This should be enough to get me into the basics.

This whole new musical horizon is opening up for me in an exciting way. It is very therapeutic after some tough years and is just doing me a lot of good.

 

[Fretless]

And it's there!



My music-corner, realised. Very pleased with this and it all even looks pretty tidy!

Tried some Space-Guitar and sequencer experiments. Yes. Really chuffed!

 

[Slinger]

I love it when a plan comes together ...especially when I'm not the one doing the hard work.

Nice one, mate.

 

[Fretless]

It may seem perfectly normal to some, but connecting a drum machine and a sequencer with a midi wire is some sort of magic wizardry.

The two synchronise immediately and the tempo of one controls the other.

Well, it's amazing to me!